Summary:
Features include 1) small size, 2) a hygrophanous cap that is a deep tawny honey color or burnt sienna at first, and is slightly viscid but without a separable pellicle, 3) a cap margin that is slightly striate when moist and at first with veil remnants, 4) adnate or short subdecurrent gills that are "pale to dark brown violaceous" with whitish, fringed edges, 5) a stem colored similarly to the cap soon becoming bay from the base up, 6) a fibrillose ring-zone, 7) growth on soil in grassland, and 8) microscopic characters including wide cheilocystidia. The description is derived from Guzman(1). Noordeloos(2001) considered P. apelliculosa as a synonym of P. castanella but Guzman(1) noted that the two species differ in the width of the cheilocystidia, 3-5(6) microns in P. castanella.

Cap:
0.6-2cm across, "convex, often obtusely umbonate especially when young", then more or less flat; "hygrophanous, deep tawny honey or burnt sienna at first, then ochraceous-honey, often with a more yellow margin, drying creamy or pale ochraceous from the center outwards but sometimes remaining darker toward the disc"; slightly viscid but without a separable pellicle [cap skin], "even but margin slightly striate when moist", bald, but margin with appressed fibrils or appendiculate [hanging] veil patches at first, (Guzman(1)), (0.6)1-2cm across, convex to somewhat umbonate, finally flat; hygrophanous, "dark cinnamon-brown or dark reddish-brown to pale reddish-brown or pale orangish on the margin"; slightly viscid to dry, "with silky and grayish fibrils", (Guzman(4))

Flesh:
colored as surface, drying whitish or pale yellowish in center of cap and stem, (Guzman(1))

Gills:
"adnate or short subdecurrent"; "pale to dark brown violaceous with whitish and subfloccose or subdenticulate edges", (Guzman(1)), adnate to short-decurrent; "grayish when young to brownish-gray or dark brown-violaceous when mature", edges whitish; edges "subfloccose or denticulate", (Guzman(4))

Stem:
1.5-3cm x 0.05-0.15cm, equal or slightly thickened at top, usually bulbillose [with small bulb], often flexuose [wavy]; "ochraceous honey or tawny honey like the cap, soon becoming bay from the base up", but top "remaining paler or sometimes slightly redder", (Guzman(1)), (1.7)3-4cm x 0.15-0.25cm, equal or slightly wider at top, hollow, often flexuous; dark gray-brown to ochraceous honey, finally reddish brown; "sometimes covered with floccose white scales"; "base subfloccose, often extending into the substrate and covered with white tomentum", (Guzman(4))

Veil:
"cortinate then as appressed white to pale buff or yellowish fibrillose ring-zone", which usually disappears when old leaving only remnants on stem and cap margin, (Guzman(1)), cortinaceous, fugacious [fleeting], remains as appressed pale yellowish fibrils on upper stem and cap margin, (Guzman(4))

Odor:
"none or faintly pleasant", (Guzman(1))

Taste:
indistinct or faint, pleasant, (Buczacki)

Microscopic spores:
spores 6-7.7(8.8) x 4.4-4.9 x 3.8-4.4 microns, subelliptic both in face and side view, or somewhat lentiform [lens-shaped], with brownish yellow, thin walls (no more than 0.5 microns thick), and narrow apical germ pore; basidia 4-spored, 26-30 x 7-8 microns; pleurocystidia absent; cheilocystidia 22-23(40) x 7.7-8.8(12) microns, "lageniform with flexuous or undulating neck", 3-4 microns wide, sometimes with a colorless and viscous droplet at the tip; clamp connections present, (Guzman(1)), spores (5)5.5-7(8) x 4-5 x 3.5-4.5 microns, "subrhomboid or subellipsoid in face-view, subellipsoid in side view", thin-walled, wall up to 0.5 microns thick; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia (13.5)18-31 x (6)8-12(14) microns, "utriform, broadly utriform or sublageniform"; cap cuticle with prostrated colorless hyphae, not gelatinous, (Guzman(4))

Notes:
Guzman(1) studied material from United Kingdom (the type) and Sweden, and noted it was reported also from France. Paul Kroeger found it in BC at University of British Columbia Botanical Garden and in his own back yard (probably introduced in both places), with the identification confirmed by Guzman, (Paul Kroeger, pers. comm., these collections deposited at the University of British Columbia).

EDIBILITY

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Deconica apelliculosa (unpublished combination)